This is the first poetry book by Ron Rash and was published in 1998. Eureka Mill is in north central South Carolina in Chester County, the birthplaceThis is the first poetry book by Ron Rash and was published in 1998. Eureka Mill is in north central South Carolina in Chester County, the birthplace of the author. The textile industry in the southeastern U.S. has achieved a good deal of notoriety for its working conditions and unionization efforts. It is an industry that thrived in the early and mid twentieth century, brought the scourge of brown lung disease and has essentially vanished into the international marketplace.

In an essay titled Ghostly Bodies and Worker Voices: Power and Resistance in Ron Rash’s Eureka Mill Randall Wilhelm writes

In Eureka Mill, themes of power, identity, and resistance intertwine and are woven into the very fabric of the language and forms themselves. Through Rash’s use of dramatic monologues and intricate sound patterns, he gives voice to the frustrations, confusions, and anxieties Southern millhands felt in response to their new spatial and economic identities in the mill system of the Piedmont. … In story after story, poem after poem, Rash shows his sympathy for the historically silenced mountain folk, the blood kin from whom he springs, the ghosts who people his own “spirit world” with glittering intensity. Eureka Mill is Rash’s most overtly political book, and while the poems obviously evoke sympathy for the millworkers and their plight, Rash is certainly not in lock step with a leftist agenda and offers no easy answers for the complexities of the mill enterprise. Source: http://www.clemson.edu/cedp/cudp/scr/...

Eureka Mill is a short novel in verse telling the story of the change from subsistence farming to life in the town working at the textile mill with the machinery powered by the flow of the Appalachian rivers and the labor of entire families. As is often the case with poetry, there is an economy of words with the story told in sixty-two pages. ...more

I was eager to read this most recent (2011) book of collected poetry by Ron Rash after reading his first three poetry offerings in recent weeks. RashI was eager to read this most recent (2011) book of collected poetry by Ron Rash after reading his first three poetry offerings in recent weeks. Rash started with poetry and reviewers of his more recent novels note that as they praise his poetic use of words in his prose work. He is rapidly becoming more than a well known and well respected regional writer in the southern and Appalachian areas. His recent bestseller Serena and his short story collections have moved him into the national scene. Many of the poems in Waking have been previously published in magazines and journals.

Ron Rash promises us a slower pace in this book.

ResolutionThe serge and clatter of whitewater concealshow shallow underneath is, how quickly gone.Leave that noise behind. Come herewhere the water is slow, and clear.Watch the crawfish prance across the sand,the mica flash, the sculpen blend with stone.It’s all beyond your reach though it appearsas near and known as your outstretched hand.

"sculpen" – does anybody know what this word means? I cannot unravel it even with the help of Google and I thought that Google knew everything! Is it an archaic word or just a typo?

A short book of many short poems should be quick to read, right? No, not so! First the type is too small in this small book for my older eyes, Mr. Rash. That is one thing that slows me down. But, it is necessary to read almost every poem more than once and, if it is really short, maybe more than twice! And then to plan to go back to it at another time – maybe in just a minute or maybe tomorrow. This is what slows me down, Mr. Rash. But I am not complaining. Well, maybe a little bit about the size of the type. (But I found a brighter bulb helped there!)

This is the fourth book of poetry by Ron Rash that I have read in April. And I have been reading some of his prose as well. I cannot escape from him this month but it is almost May so I will end my April reading of Ron Rash and, I guess, begin my May reading. I have a couple of his books to go and then I understand that he has a new book of short stories coming out in the Fall. Thank you, Mr. Rash, for taking good care of me this year!

He has poured his life and his ancestor’s lives into his work so that we will remember the past that has led us into the present. What does this man of the past think about the future?

Ron Rash does sometimes seems fixed on gloom and death. But that makes his flashes so much the better. Like this one:

Woman Among Lightning: Catawba County Fair, 1962Tendrils of neon sproutingsudden as kudzu acrossseven acres of sawdust,in the middle of a great wheeldredging buckets of darknessout of the sky, and this nightwind flapping tents, underneathof clouds glowing like blown coals,thundering their heavy freighttoward the fairground as ridersdisembark early, but sherefuses, so rides intothe storm, hand reaching as iftrying to pull lightning-wreaths around her head – a farmwifeleaving the ground where her daysare measured in rows, the hoeswinging like a metronomewhile life leaks away like bloodon land always wanting more, wanting more, free of it nowas the hawk she saw at dawn,wings embracing an updraft,how it hovered that momentabove the fields and fence wire,as she does now at the pausebetween ascent and return,far from earth as a fistful of hard-earned quarters can take her.

Ron Rash is maybe reaching for a wider audience with his more recent poetry, it. It seems more accessible than some of his earlier work but that may only be a seeming so to me as I am getting more accustomed to his verse and his subjects. He does cover some familiar territory in this book. He is a young poet in his way, now only in his early 60s and will, I hope, keep on with the poetry even as his prose achieves greater popularity. I have loved getting to know Ron Rash’s poetry in the past month. It has been a special experience. He is like a pair of newly broken in leather shoes: comfortable but with still some of the new sheen.

This collection of poetry arranged in the common five Rash segments is an easy four stars that invites random rereading at quiet moments. One day - maybe soon - I will have my selection of favorite Ron Rash poems....more

This is the second book of collected poetry by Ron Rash and was published in this book format in 2000. Many of the poems were previously published inThis is the second book of collected poetry by Ron Rash and was published in this book format in 2000. Many of the poems were previously published in journals and magazines.

It was a stretch for me to buy this book because I am not religious and, from the title, I assumed that this book likely leaned in that direction. I am not very fond of religion and am not very patient with it.

I was brought up in a Missouri Synod Lutheran church chosen by my Baptist father and Episcopal mother because we could walk to the church from our suburban home. My mother eventually stopped attending, stayed home on Sunday morning and listened to church on the radio. But my father and sister and I were faithful to the Sunday call. My father was the church treasurer for many years and I went to sleep with the sound of the adding machine totaling the columns. I practiced holding my breath with my wrist watch during the Pastor’s twenty minute sermons. I went to catechism but did not join the church when it ended with too many unanswered questions that demanded obedience to faith. My father did not object, probably after a heated discussion with my mother. I still have my Sunday school attendance pin just short of the four year attendance bar. I have saved it for possible future necessity. When I moved away from home to go to college, I mostly did not go to church and campaigned for Democrats.

I like to understand what I am reading and poetry sometimes eludes me. I do occasionally remember that it helps to read poetry out loud, listening to myself speaking the words. But I have to have a quiet time when I am alone, a circumstance that I usually overlook. Sunday morning occasionally offers itself, ironically.

In an introduction to the book, Anthony Hecht writes:

His family has lived in the southern Appalachian mountains since the mid-1700’s, and a knowledge and feel for this region, its folklore, faiths, superstitions, loyalties and culture, is an abiding presence in his poems. …His family background is Welsh, and he knows as much as Robert Graves about Welsh poetics and The Mabinogion, and has aimed at times at that kind of alliteration the Welsh call cynghanedd.

Since I had not let the threat of religious verse scare me off, I was certainly not likely to tremble at the threat of Welsh! I just admit to being under duress as I listened to what seemed to be beautiful (if incomprehensible) sounds. Probably duress is not the right word. It is more accurate to say that I was somewhat under the spell of Ron Rash verses. I notice linkages between his prose and his poetry that I think will grow as I become more familiar with them by reading his growing work.

So I have rationalized the fact that I do not understand a lot of this poetry and rely on that AA slogan “Take what you like and leave the rest.” There are a lot of lovely words in this book even if the entirety might not be as accessible as would be ideal. This book could use some more than the seven explanatory notes on page 73 for the less erudite among us.

But let me close with one poem that I think requires no notes:

AMONG THE BELIEVERSEven the young back then died old.My great-aunt’s brow at twenty-eightwas labored by a hardscrabble worldno final breath could smooth away. They laid her out in her wedding dress,the life that killed in her arms, the headturned to suckle her cold breastin eternity. A cousin helda camera above the open casket, cast a shadow the camera raisedwhere flesh and wood and darkness met,a photograph the husband claimed.Nailed on the wall above his bed,smudged and traced for five decades,a cross of shadow, shadowing death, across an uncomprehending face.

Ron Rash has captured the history of his family and his region and left it for us to ponder and enjoy. ...more

This is the third book of collected poetry by Ron Rash and was published in this book format in 2002. Many of the poems were previously published in jThis is the third book of collected poetry by Ron Rash and was published in this book format in 2002. Many of the poems were previously published in journals and magazines. Rash put out a couple of books in quick succession of collected works. Clearing the deck while he has the chance. His popularity has taken off with his recent success of Serena. His fans are looking back to his early work, poetry that has its origins in Appalachian Welsh culture.

Dams creating reservoirs that cover the history of an area are a common subject for Ron Rash. Generations of life could not hold off the demand for electric power and the companies that swallowed home and church and field were rabid in their demands. The disappearance of the panther is mulled in many verses as its habitat was threatened. The one-time home of the Cherokee where now all that is left is pottery and arrowheads and bone shards under the depth of the water.

Jocassee is the Cherokee word for a valley in the South Carolina mountains. In the early 1970s, despite fervent opposition by the valley’s inhabitants, Duke Power Company built a dam to create Jocassee Reservoir. Both the living and the dead were evicted, for hundreds of graves were dug up and their contents reburied in cemeteries outside the valley. The reservoir reached full water capacity in 1974. In Cherokee Jocassee means “place of the lost.”

As I read line after line of Ron Rash, the familiarity of place and time increases and I want to know what he has to say about his ancestral home. The rivers are clean and clear. The soil is rich and fertile in some places and rocky in others. The shadows on the north side of the mountain cover the ground at midday. Rash tells the story of the people, his people, who settled and lived and died in the region. The people who lost their way and who found their place in the mountains are found here in the verses. Rash covers the fecundity of new life by man and nature’s seed and the finality of death by age or calamity. I can only imagine what it would be like to experience his poetry as a person living where the words happened. Rash brings a long ago life back from under the water and out of the books.

Raising the Dead is divided into five sections. You can read the poems individually but they do group together with the aid of a master storyteller. I did not try to decipher each story but saw the occasional connection and knew there was more that I could know if I could obtain the eye or ear of the man who gathered the memories and fragrances.

I include this next Ron Rash poem because I am entranced with its imagery. Antietam was a Civil War battle in Maryland and is called “the bloodiest one day battle in American history.” Appalachian mountain people fought on both sides in the Civil War and it left scars on and divisions in the region. Another poem in this book, The Dowry, speaks of this as a “yankee” tries to wed the daughter of a confederate colonel who lost one hand in the Civil War.

ANTIETAMThe feast huddle explodes when I approach.A gray fox remains, whitening to bone.The risen wait in the limbs abovefor me to glance the marker, pass on. And I imagine their ancestorsdescending the day after battle,settling as soft and easy as ashes, a shuddering quilt of feather and talon.

Locals swore each anniversarythose death-embracers found the way back,gathered by some avian memoryto turn September branches blackas they hunched in rows like a regiment –clear-eyed, voiceless, and vigilant.

Ron Rash helps the people hold on to the life that has gone before them whether it is buried under six feet of blood-red dirt or forty feet of clear water.

TREMORWeight of water was what caused cups to shiver in cupboards,cows to pause, Duke Power claimed,but those who once lived therethought otherwise, spoke of livesso rooted in the valleysome part of their lives lingered:breeze of sickle combing wheat,stir of hearth-kettle, the treadof mule across the broken ground,long ago movements breakingacross time like a fault line.

Ron Rash is a gift and also gives a gift to the people of the Appalachian region of North and South Carolina in this book. Even without fully understanding the content of all the poems, a reader gradually comes to appreciate the skill of this writer and wants to learn more about what lies in his heart. Four stars even with only a few explanatory notes. Probably five if I had more background. ...more

The Women Who Hate Me was first published as a chapbook in 1983 when Dorothy was 34; it was expanded and published in the form being reviewed here inThe Women Who Hate Me was first published as a chapbook in 1983 when Dorothy was 34; it was expanded and published in the form being reviewed here in 1991. Her short story collection Trash was first published in 1988 and an expanded version was published in 2002. She received mainstream recognition in 1992 when Bastard Out of Carolina was published.

The Women Who Hate Me: Poetry, 1980-1990 is available used at www.alibris.com .

An informative and fascinating interview with Dorothy Allison in 1995 is available on the web at http://www.tulane.edu/~wc/zale/alliso.... The following is a lengthy portion of the interview about The Women Who Hate Me poetry.

THE WOMEN WHO HATE ME is a series of poems most of which were written in 1982, and the summer of 1981-1983. First, the book was published in 1983, the first edition. Most of the poems were written following the Barnard Conference on sexuality in April, 1981. I was part of a panel there. The conference was designed to look at a complicated notion of sexuality and the whole design was about pleasure and danger, so they wanted to talk about all of the harm and the danger that exists around sexual issues for women. And they also wanted to talk about why sex and sexuality could be a source of power, authority and pleasure. Well, this was also 1981 and that was exactly the part of the discussion that was not supposed to be happening. When the Women's movement was essentially, the ---- was the anti-pornography movement. And it was not simply that there was a ---- of notions of what you were supposed to be saying about porn or anti-porn or any of that. The dominant notion was that we can't take care of all that until we take of this problem. Therefore, we can't talk about lesbian relationships, or incest. Everybody's gonna have to refrain from enjoying sexuality or women's pursuit of sexual pleasure, or heterosexual women teaching heterosexual men how to actually make them have an orgasm. We can't talk about any of that until we stop pornography and stop violence against women. These are the only two subjects we can discuss about sexuality. That's what happened at the Barnard Conference because the conference opened a whole range of discussion and the New York chapter of Women Against Pornography picketed. Not only did they picket, they published leaflets which named eight of us as being essentially anti-feminist terrorists. Not only did they distribute leaflets with our names and addresses and phone numbers up and down Broadway, they called each of us, the people we worked for and reported our various deviations in an attempt to get us fired. They called the University's development committee, you guys got a university, you know what happens when all of a sudden what is the equivalent to a Christian riot walks in and says "------all these lesbians and perverts and child sexual molesters over there talking". The day the conference happened, the program for the conference was confiscated and burned by the university officials, because they had some many interesting phone calls the week before. It turned into a nightmare. I know people who lost their lives because of that conference. A lot of people lost their jobs. Plenty of people had nervous breakdowns, left town, disappeared. I wrote poems. I wrote a series of poems. I left my lover, I stopped having sex, I went home and told my mother I want a real mastectomy, so then I wrote another series of poems. The book is largely about that. And a lot of us lost our religion. Jesus had turned out to be not what we thought he was. The Women's Movement was not the safe place we imagined it to be. Open discussion was not the rule as we had imagined. A lot of us had to hold back, hold ourselves up, and think very seriously about what we had been doing. It wasn't so easy as to say, "Y'know, I got the answer. I'm a feminist. I'm going to change the world. It is very simple." It ain't simple. And it is extremely complicated for working class women, because we tended to be the ones whose sexuality was not as --- as a lot of the middle class women who were at that conference, and who were perfectly willing to say, oh we'll wait. We'll do anti-porn first. But as a working class lesbian, the one thing you learn is that if you don't kill yourself, you do not drink yourself to death, if you do not find a girlfriend who will literally bash your head in, if you survive, one of the things you learn is that sexuality is the place where you cannot compromise, because it is so dangerous. That you can't always just talk about the bad side, you have to go over and find out why, why if sex is so dangerous, you're still gonna look for the one who can do it right for you. So, the poem THE WOMEN WHO HATE ME is essentially aimed at the women I couldn't speak at, couldn't speak to at the Barnard Conference because they were screaming at me. And it starts out, The women who do not know me.The women who, not knowing me, hate memark my life, rise in my dreams and shake out their loose hair throw outtheir thin wrists, narrow theiralready sharp eyes and sayWho do you think you are?Lazy, useless, cunt sucking, scared and stupidWhat you scared of anyway?Their eyes, their hands, their voices.

Terrifying.The women who hate me cut meas men can't. Men don't count.I can handle men. Never expected betterof any man anyway. But the women,shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made forsafe little girls who think nothing of bravadowho never got over by playing it tough.What do they know of my fear?What do they know of the women in my body?My weakening hips, sharp good teeth,angry nightmares, scarred cheeks,fat thighs, fat everything.(but the women who hate me cut me.)Don't smile too wide. You look like a fool.Don't want too much. You ain't gonna get it.Say goddamn it and kick somebody's assthat I am not half what I should be,full of terrified angry bravado

This book is the collection of the four A.A. Milne Pooh books under one cover: Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; When We Were Very Young; andThis book is the collection of the four A.A. Milne Pooh books under one cover: Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; When We Were Very Young; and, Now We Are Six. As an adult I am glad to have these books on my shelf again. I undoubtedly had them before in their separate books and being reunited is quite nice. However, this collection is much too heavy to be comfortably held up for reading. Especially if you are of the age of Christopher Robin.

I almost forgot to mention that the original "Decorations" by Ernest H. Shepard are colorfully included. This is the 70th Anniversary edition. It does weigh about as much as a bag of sugar. ...more

It is true that I like short stories better than most poetry. So when this book starts out with poem after poem, I am looking ahead to the prose thatIt is true that I like short stories better than most poetry. So when this book starts out with poem after poem, I am looking ahead to the prose that I know is just around the corner on page 36. This book is probably four stars if it is just short stories but I am impatient with too many of the poems. Not all short stories are weird. I just wanted to say that. And I should say that there is some poetry here that I liked.

This is a great coffee table book for a smallish coffee table! This particular Ploughshares has quite a a variety of writing in this small softcover book published semiannually by Emerson College in Boston. While you won't find this used unless you have a friend with back issues, there is a way to catch up with a new or electronic copy online.

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, socialist, homosexual and columnist. He began writing poetry when he was a young teenager. His newspaper column ran for twenty years in the 1940s and 1950s. Hughes uses the rhythms of African American music, particularly blues and jazz in his poetry. Later in his life Langston Hughes was called the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race," a title he enjoyed and encouraged.

Hughes’ poetry will sing to you. He was named the Class Poet in his eighth grade class. Hughes said that he was one of two blacks in the class, but everybody (but not him, he reported) knew that Negroes (the polite term in those days that Hughes used) had rhythm! As an adult, some of his moves were to escape racial discrimination. Hughes attended Columbia University for one year but left because of discrimination. His first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He was twenty-four and had that one year of college.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple's Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big Sea) and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston. Source: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83

Some academics and biographers today believe that Hughes was homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, similar in manner to Walt Whitman. Hughes has cited him as an influence on his poetry. Hughes's story "Blessed Assurance" deals with a father's anger over his son's effeminacy and "queerness". To retain the respect and support of black churches and organizations and avoid exacerbating his precarious financial situation, Hughes remained closeted. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston...

The poetry in Selected Poems of Langston Hughes is almost all very short, some as short as two or three lines, hardly any more than a page. His poems are moments, glimpses, feelings, vignettes, riffs. He has gospel and god damn. He has humor but can surprise you with serious, something hard to deliver in just a few lines.

Vagabonds

We are the desperateWho do not care,The hungryWho have nowhereTo eat.No place to sleep,The tearless Who cannotWeep.

Quite a few Hughes poems could be Tweets! 144, a gross of characters that catch a loose idea.

Ennui

It’s such a BoreBeing alwaysPoor.

Sea Calm

How still,How strangely stillThe water is today.It is not goodFor waterTo be so still that way.

Little Lyric (Of Great Importance)

I wish the rentWas heaven sent.

Langston sings the blues.

Down and Out

Baby, if you love meHelp me when I’m down and out.If you love me, baby,Help me when I’m down and out,I’m a po’ galNobody gives a damn about.

The credit man’s done took ma clothesAnd rent time’s nearly here.I’d like to buy a straightenin’ comb,An’ I need a dime fo’ beer.

I need a dime fo’ beer.

Langston laughs.

Heaven

Heaven is The place whereHappiness isEverywhere.

Animals And birds sing – As doesEverything.

To each stone,“How-do-you-do?”Stone answers back,“Well! And you?”

Hughes doesn’t use big words or arcane allusions to make his points.

Ballad of the Girl Whose Name Is Mud

A girl with all that raising, It’s hard to understandHow she could get in trouble With a no-good man.

The guy she gave her all toDropped her with a thud.Now amongst decent people,Dorothy’s name is mud.

But nobody’s seen her shed a tear,Nor seen her hang her head. Ain’t even heard her murmur,Lord, I wish I was dead!

No! the hussy’s telling everybody –Just as though it was no sin – That if she had a chanceShe’d do it agin’!

Hughes is not all fun. Not at all. He wrote of the terror of his day.

Ku Klux

They took me out To some lonesome place.They said, “Do you believeIn the great white race?”

I said, “Mister,To tell you the truth,I’d believe in anythingIf you’d just turn me loose.”

If Giovanni is a new name to you, she is worth reading. The book begins in her angry Black Power days but she moves from the political to the personalIf Giovanni is a new name to you, she is worth reading. The book begins in her angry Black Power days but she moves from the political to the personal over the years. But you never forget that she is Black. She is proud to be Black and angry and distressed with the discrimination faced by Blacks for so long. You will find the words Black, colored, Negro and nigger throughout, each with their own meaning . Her work is sensitizing and informing. There is also humor and attitude. She portrays herself as a person who will tell you what she thinks and her work seems to bear that out.

To read through this volume of Giovanni’s poetry is indeed to read “the story” of the last thirty years (note: 1968 - 1998)of American life, as that life has been lived, observed, and reflected about by a racially conscious Black woman.

I give The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni four stars. It was both fun and thought provoking. If I was going to recommend just one of her books, it would be Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day. I liked just about every poem in that book. But this collection gives you six for the price of one. It is almost totally free verse with the smallest amount of rhyming. The Collection contains all the poetry from her six major books during the 1968 to 1998 time period including Cotton Candy. The book also includes a good deal of biographical and descriptive material that is great for the uninitiated reader.

This book is a teacher. It helps you learn. It offers some guidance. Don’t get to page 74 like me before realizing that there are 70 pages of notes about many of the poems at the back of the book. The notes don’t tell you what the poems mean but what some of the references mean. Since I lived through that time, I knew many of the references but there was other descriptive information in the notes. They made the poems more meaningful and readable for me, especially if I read the notes before reading the poem. The back of the book contains a good deal of additional information about Giovanni. Thanks to whoever put this book together. It is an excellent learning package. For me, it would be an excellent model for all books of poetry.

The poetry is often based on current events so some knowledge of the era when Giovanni is writing is useful, but if you were not born yet, the notes at the back of the book are great. Many of us did live through that time; Giovanni was born in 1943 so is three years older than I am. The book was published in 2003 and represents the collection of the poet’s work from 1968 through 1998.

Taken from the Introduction written by Virginia C. Fowler in 1995:

Giovanni does not believe … that the poet … has visionary powers beyond those of people who are not poets or writers. She also denies the power of poetry to change the world, as she has stated, “I don’t think that writers ever changed the mind of anybody. I think we always preach to the saved.”

When you read the poetry, you may not agree. I cannot really tell since I am one of the “saved”. Is a poet always accurate about the impact of her work?

To paraphrase Ms. Fowler, Giovanni believes that aesthetic value emerges from and is dependent on moral values and that the poet writes not from experience but from empathy. (That is about is deep as I can wade with my limited knowledge about how poetry happens! But I wanted to throw that in for the one expert who may read this to see what the common person gets.)

Some of Giovanni’s poetry takes a new form:

Published in 1983, Those Who Ride the Night Winds marks Giovanni’s innovation of a new “lineless” poetic form in which word groups are separated from each other by ellipses rather than line breaks.

I have never experienced that format so it took some getting used to and emphasized that what Giovanni writes is often a narrative. Worth checking out if you consider yourself a poetry person.

Nikki Giovanni’s poetry is meant to be read out loud. And I found it enjoyable to read it out loud to myself. I also looked for some sources of her talking and reading her poems. I found some on youtube.

And there are more. Try reading some out loud to yourself. You might find that you are pretty good at it. Here’s one to try right now:

Revolutionary Dreams

i used to dream militantdreams of takingover america to showthese white folks how it should bedone i used to dream radical dreamsof blowing everyone away with my perceptive powersof correct analysisi even used to think i’d be the oneto stop the riot and negotiate the peacethen i awoke and dugthat if i dreamed naturaldreams of being a naturalwoman doing what a womandoes when she’s naturali would have a revolution

Nikki Giovanni is a poet and reading her poetry and voicing her mind she becomes an actor. She has quite an in person presence. Her poetry is in the oral tradition so benefits from being spoken. Some could be lyrics to a song. She has a sharp mind and is blunt to share it. She is available on CD and DVD as well as in print. ...more

E.E.Cummings died at the so young age of 68 leaving much yet to say. HSelected PoemsE.E.CummingsWith introduction and commentary by Richard S. Kennedy

E.E.Cummings died at the so young age of 68 leaving much yet to say. His short stories of scattered words and irregular lines are to me sometimes a word puzzle and sometimes a bright and clear picture.

Selected Poems by E.E.Cummings includes a brief introduction and a commentary to start each of the twelve sections. Along with the 156 poems taken from the course of his writing, there are thirteen of his drawings, oils and watercolors. Selected by Richard S. Kennedy, Cummings’ biographer, the selection of poems “includes most of the favorites plus many fresh and surprising examples of Cummings’ several poetic styles.”

Known for his brevity and wit, Cummings can be inscrutable as well. He is an artist who creates word pictures and soundscapes. He begs you to read his words out loud even if just to yourself. Youtube.com is a source of many readings. A couple are included here.

I obtained this wonderful short book through the GR BookSwap. What a treat! The introductions to the book as well as to the sections are enlightening and take some of the occasional mystery out of E.E.Cummings’ unique style.

This is another one of those 20+ year old books that I seem to be reading regularly. But it has aged well and I would recommend it to all people who aThis is another one of those 20+ year old books that I seem to be reading regularly. But it has aged well and I would recommend it to all people who are old or think they may be old one day. Especially women. This one was on my parent's bookshelf that I have been raiding recently.

You can get this book on GR Bookswap at the moment. Go for it! I won't be passing on my own copy since it has a sentimental value to me. But you can get a hardcover copy for 99 cents at Alibris. ...more

My children grew up with alphabet books and counting books and color books and animal books. But how do children learn Pleasure, Patience, Clarity, WiMy children grew up with alphabet books and counting books and color books and animal books. But how do children learn Pleasure, Patience, Clarity, Wisdom, Compassion, Honesty, Joy and all the other positive qualities? How do children learn Worry, Despair, Doubt, Defeat, Anger, Panic, Suffering and all the other negative qualities? Is it possible that I and the world taught them all of those and more?

Author Gendler gives us some words in The Book of Qualities to put a human face on many of the experiences and feelings of our lives. She shared a phrase that might say best what this book is: “the ways words dance.” The book is filled with confirmations and revelations.

When the book is working for me, it will make me quizzical, introspective and pleased.

On her website Ruth Gendler says:

During the process of writing The Book of Qualities I felt like an explorer trying to penetrate underneath the layers and stereotypes to experience the Qualities more directly. I was turning my skills in investigation and observation inward, focusing on the textures and colors of the emotional landscape, calling on my training as both a journalist and an artist.Source: http://www.ruthgendler.com/books_qual...

From the book:

JoyJoy drinks pure water. She has sat with the dying and attended many births. She denies nothing. She is in love with life, all of it, the sun and the rain and the rainbow. She rides horses at Half Moon Bay under the October moon. She climbs mountains. She sings in the hills. She jumps from the hot spring to the cold stream without hesitation.Although Joy is spontaneous, she is immensely patient. She does not need to rush. She knows that there are obstacles on every path and that every moment is the perfect moment. She is not concerned with success or failure or how to make things permanent.At times Joy is elusive – she seems to disappear even as we approach her. I see her standing on a ridge covered with oak trees, and suddenly the distance between us feels enormous. I am overwhelmed and wonder if the effort to catch her is worth it. Yet, she waits for us. Her desire to walk with us is as great as our longing to accompany her.

This is a book of poetry and philosophy. It is from the 1970s and 1980s, a time that I look back on fondly. Another GR reviewer said it is “weaving/potting/Birkenstocks/wholegrain bread.” A person I know would call it “crunchy granola.” I think they are right. Five stars from a throwback....more

If you are interested in nonviolence, you will want to learn about Barbara Deming and the War Resisters League. We Are All Part of One Another: A BarbIf you are interested in nonviolence, you will want to learn about Barbara Deming and the War Resisters League. We Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader was published almost thirty years ago and contains writing from the 1950s to the early 1980s. With the broad timeframe, you can experience the development of Deming’s writing and her theory of nonviolence from the point of view of a radical feminist.

Deming, a novelist, short story writer, and poet who was born in 1917 and died in 1984, was raised in Manhattan by upper-middle class parents with “traditional habits and opinions.” But at 16, she fell in love with her mother’s best friend (Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sister Norma) and boldly wrote in her journal, “I am a lesbian. I must face it.” Thereafter, she refused to conceal her sexual orientation. After graduation from Bennington, Deming moved to Greenwich Village, worked at Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, and had a brief affair with Lotte Lenya, the Austrian actress-singer who was married to composer Kurt Weill.Deming, while essentially liberal, had remained rather apolitical until the late ’50s, when on a trip to India she steeped herself in Gandhi’s writings and became a convert to his theory of nonviolence as the path to peace and change, eventually emerging as a leader of A.J. Muste’s Committee for NonViolent Action. It was on her return to the US from revolutionary Cuba that Deming began to put her body on the line and got arrested in a never-ending series of non-violent direct action struggles, both in the movement for black civil rights — she spent several harrowing months in jail in Albany, Georgia — and in the budding movement against nuclear weapons and for peace and disarmament.As she later wrote of these militant actions, they “reverberated deeply a so-called ‘apolitical’ struggle I’d been waging on my own, in a lonely way up until then, as a woman and a lesbian: the struggle to claim my life as my own.”Source: http://queerliberationfront.us/2011/0...

Her political work and organizing began when she placed herself in the midst of the nonviolent civil rights movement.

Birmingham, Alabama: Summer, 1963 – The words in one of their songs run: “The truth shall make us free.” Within these walls, the truth they affirm is making them free. The same truth that will carry them out into the streets.And now Martin Luther King is speaking: “They can handle violence; but we have a weapon that they can’t handle. They don’t know what to do with us when we are nonviolent; they are confused. You don’t need to strike them in return, or curse them in return. Just keep going. Just keep presenting your body as a witness to the truth as you see it. Don’t get tired. Don’t get bitter. Are you tired?” The answer comes in a great shout: “NO!”

It turned out that Barbara Deming was a writer who was often immersed in the action. That day she was an activist forming the eventual words in her mind about her feelings as the newsmen stood across the street watching.

” I have begun, even before this day, to feel a sudden unpleasant catch in my stomach each time I step out into the street and see a white man. What is he going to do? So now I know what it is like. Now I am a Negro. Except that I can drive away from it.”

The section “On Revolution and Equilibrium” is about the theory of nonviolence. In other sections you see nonviolence in action, especially in the southern civil rights movement in which Barbara participated. The fact that nonviolence practitioners sometimes suffer injury and even death at the hands of violent adversaries is perhaps one of the aspects of nonviolence that is least understood and most questioned. The Salt March lead by Gandhi in India including the beating by British police of hundreds of nonviolent protesters received worldwide news coverage and is dramatically depicted in the award winning 1982 film Gandhi. Police brutalizing nonviolent civil rights activists including children throughout the south with clubs, dogs and high power water hoses was graphically shown to a horrified American public. The “other cheek” response to violent attacks on nonviolent protesters has always been a part of the strategy that many observers do not accept. It is one of the most powerful aspects of nonviolence that is discussed in We Are All Part of One Another.

Barbara Deming (July 23, 1917 – August 2, 1984) was an American feminist and advocate of nonviolent social change. She was born in New York City and attended a Friends (Quaker) school up through her high school years.Deming directed plays, taught dramatic literature and wrote and published fiction and non-fiction works. On a trip to India, she began reading Gandhi, and became committed to a non-violent struggle, with her main cause being Women's Rights. She later became a journalist, and was active in many demonstrations and marches over issues of peace and civil rights. She was a member of a group that went to Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and was jailed many times for non-violent protest. Deming openly believed that it was often those whom we loved that oppressed us, and that it was necessary to re-invent non-violent struggle every day.It is often said that she created a body of non-violent theory, based on action and personal experience, that centered on the potential of non-violent struggle in its application to the women's movement.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_...